In the Weeds

There is virtue in seeking less than perfection.

I’m serious. 😊 We’ll unfold this statement in a minute.

Have you ever seen my garden? Probably not. So envision a small patch of tangled rosemary and thyme, always dying but ever surviving impatiens, and a rugged succulent that keeps being hacked by soccer balls yet still continues to mount the thyme.

There are plenty of weeds. Dead leaves. I manage to clean it a few times a year.

But the fresh herbs are so worth it. And the girls love scattering a couple newly painted rocks there a couple times a year.

My life has so many weeds in it too! There are probably quite a few dead elements that need to be hacked away as well.

But remember the parable about the weeds that Jesus told us? A farmer planted his field; he watered and cared for the young seeds. Yet when they sprouted, they were accompanied by these crowding, pesky nettles and he realized that an enemy had sown weeds in his field as he slept. What did the farmer do? He ordered his servants to leave the weeds be, lest in removing them, they damage the crop. The weeds could be gathered in months later and then separated from the fruits of their labor.

He had to look at those weeds every day. EVERY DAY.

There is a saying in the restaurant world – when the chaos has reached its breaking point – that we’re “in the weeds”.

Gosh. I wish I could rip them out. They take so many forms.

If you are a parent or teacher, the last few weeks have taken on a new frenzy of planning, adjusting, hoping, and worrying. Thoughts of school and autumn activities have likely ruled your minds and dominated your schedules. And once these highly anticipated and fretted over first days have passed, sometimes there is a calm that flows from patterned hours, or a kartharsis stemming from plans perfectly culminated.

Yet, as with any project we undertake, you may also be experiencing the deflation brought about by mediocre results.

This last experience always seems to arrive without fail. No matter how many contingency plans we have formulated, obstacles rise up as an insult to the hours we put into the planning of our days.

Maybe your child just won’t be happy in her new school? Perhaps your schedule nestles perfectly into your planner but spills out to destroy your hours? Maybe that solution-of-a-new-curriculum achieves no improvement – your student refuses to even read the book. Or, perchance, just another appliance has broken down in your home.

Two weeks ago, I was readying for a new class I was teaching at a school near my home when my five-year-old exclaimed that there were so many mosquitoes in our house. My husband being away at an important networking event, I meandered away from my makeup in the bathroom to discover a cloud of termites swarming in our entry way, dropping on our heads as we attempted to secret away the jackets and boots, and tape up sheets protecting our bookshelves. Will I arrive to my first class with bugs in my hair? I wondered frantically. I grabbed the coats and made a dash for the washing machine; one child began running the shoe baskets out to the patio; others danced around excitedly, mimicking the antics of the flying insects.

Meanwhile, lizards had been collecting outside our door in the patio and as we bolted out with articles to sort and shake, they kept making a break for the interior – and those delicious bugs! – until one fat grandaddy one successfully lunged through the opening. And then we were chasing a lizard through the house, trying to scare him back to the termite-infested entryway as I glanced repeatedly at my watch.

Maybe this was a divine manifestation that I was not supposed to leave my home that day. (Actually, I still left and arrived victoriously and bug-less to a more serene, academic refuge.)

So many obstacles clutter our lives and it is SO tempting to misread them as warning signs: “Turn away! For God’s ways will be filled with light and wisdom.”

Nope.

I mean, yes. There is wisdom and light. There are also weeds and bugs though.

A dear friend once reminded me that there will always be obstacles to following God’s will – troubles shouldn’t necessarily turn us away from our path. (We aren’t in heaven yet!)

But we also have to resist the tendency to brew over those weeds sticking to our flowers and corn and beans (and whatever crops are dearest to your hearts) and not uproot the gifts we’ve received and the goals we’ve accomplished because we’re frustrated that our way is not smooth and the fruits are not visible.

If God  – who is perfection and beauty – can bear with the weeds until the harvest, should I really whine and moan that I have to deal with them in my little, blueprinted patch?

I think not.

Every fall, my seniors read one of Hawthorne’s short stories depicting a man who tragically seeks to impress perfection onto his life and loved ones. That tale ends with the words: “He failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present”.* There is much packed into those lines, but we can fall to the same temptation as we pout over the thorns in our lives. In our bitterness and our childish rants, we could forget both the slightness of this present moment (in the grand scheme of eternity) as well as the lasting beauty that could be found within it.

Let’s try not to make a our “heaven of this hell”,** lest we lose the glimpses of the true heaven already present. Let’s be content with those weeds, knowing they are there for a season to sharpen us and make us lean into the strong wood of the Cross and the merciful streams of grace.

Nourish your fields and remember – some weeds are actually edible. 😊 There could be secret new delights ahead.

*Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birthmark”. **John Milton, Paradise Lost.